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Sunday, 31 August 2014

Dip day, brilliant day

Had to work yesterday and couldn't get away until after three... too late, the Booted Warbler had disappeared and despite our best efforts AL and I could not relocate it. Whinchat, Merlin and three Stonechats tho.

Lovely day today, to Palace to start with with 80 +, maybe as many as 116 Blackwits, impressive as I've only ever seen one there before. Also a very nice juv Curlew Sand.

As well as plenty of Pied Wags there was a single White Wag, also Whites at both Howaback and The Shunan (unusually).

The moth trap produced over 200 moths of 16 species, one likely new tortrix, and a few other micros to identify.

Autumnal Rustic (dark form)

Aphobius ater (most likely)

Parsnip Moth

Another Aphobius sp to be identified but a revelation about Nicrophorus beetles as downloading the key I discovered that they are not entirely straightforward, caught 23 today, this from a previous day.

Nicrophorus investigator

Two Red Admirals in the garden, Small Tortoiseshell 3+, Green-veined White, Large White and down by The Shunan an excellent Painted Lady.

The star of the day turned up in the afternoon, first a fly-by but a couple of hours later the main performance:

What's that over the roof?

Also 29 Blackwits flew by early evening and there were c1,000 Common Gulls in to The Shunan. Robin, Dunnock and Song Thrush in the garden.

2 comments:

Don't catch too many of those, I've been catching much better since I got a new bulb and sorted out the positioning of the trap. Still find moths tricky, I think because they can be so variable but bit of a break through this year, I'm starting to know quite a few of the species here and can ID them pretty quick. Worry that I'm missing things tho.